Lars Ulrich: 'We're one day closer' to new Metallica album

Metallica drummer, Lars Ulrich, claims they're getting closer to finishing their new album although there's still a lot of work to be done

Lars Ulrich says Metallica are in no hurry to finish their upcoming album.

The metal band have been busy with their feature film 'Through the Never', but are now working on the follow-up to their 2008 record 'Death Magnetic', although Lars admits they're in no rush to complete it.

The drummer said: "What I can say is, we're one day closer to the next record being released than we were yesterday. Unless there's what's called an 'Act of God,' I would hedge my bets that '201' would be the first three digits in the release year.

"And I don't know much beyond that. We've been jamming along. We've been putting in some time."

The heavy metal legends - made up of frontman James Hatfield, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo - will premiere a new track on their upcoming tour but Kirk claims they haven't done much work on the album so far.

He added to Rolling Stone magazine: "We've jammed on certain bits and pieces of music ... But we're still going through that process. Once we figure out what pieces of music are actually gonna work us, then we're going to start turning those pieces of music into songs and seeing where that leads us."